Having been in a recent position similar to B_O, I say don't worry about needing a week off. Honestly, the peace of mind knowing that you're not going to work for that company after XXX days is good, and the new job will be a fresh start on its own.

Unless it's full of fire-breathing bears. In which case, bring two-ply.

I'll chime in with a different opinion. Even though it may seem they "screwed" you, doesn't mean you need to screw them back. You're a professional, do your best to leave them in the best shape possible. Don't burn any bridges because you may be upset with the outcome earlier. I'm not saying go and work 60-hr weeks, but do your best to leave them in the least worst situation. Don't start slacking, taking long lunches, etc as some people suggested.

I've followed this thread from the start and it's been a great read. I think you've done an awesome job given the difficult situation BO.

But to play devils advocate, the reasoning of not making major changes prior to hiring an IT director could be a reasonable choice. If they are looking at the long-term picture (not just, OMG BO leaves and stuff crashes for the next month!), then they want to bring in a competent manager and give him the power to structure the department as he sees fit (this will be the thing that even allows them to attract competent director level candidates). Maybe he would decide against a Sr sys admin position, or he has somebody he's worked with before that he wants to bring in (I know from experience that great managers typically have some Sr guys that tend to follow them from org to org). Or maybe he wants to out-source a lot of the work, and have in-house staff to manage the contractors. Lots of possibilities that would not necessarily include keeping BO around at a hefty raise.

Now I'm not saying any of those things are necessarily smart decisions, you've certainly come off as somebody who deserves a Sr position with the salary that comes with it IMHO. Even more so in light of the short-term pain they will likely feel with you leaving. But a lesson I've learned in the past is everybody is replaceable, don't fool yourself into thinking you're not. A bunch of Highly Paid Consultants can come in and put out most short-term fires.

Having said all that, my opinion from reading this thread is they made a huge mistake letting you get away.

But they are not doing that. They are bringing in a senior tech, and not hiring a real manager. They reserved the salary and position that they dangled in front of him for that new hire and would have done nothing for him.

I only put in 8 hours today, but it's going to be another 50+ hour week anyway. Necessary to even attempt to have any chance of getting stuff done.

Who are you doing this for?

Seriously. YOU ARE LEAVING, THEY DON'T VALUE YOU, it's not your problem anymore. They've showed how little they actually care about you; you should now be in minimum duty mode. This means 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, if it doesn't get done, too bad so sad.

This is not a situation where you are leaving on good terms. Stop letting them take advantage of you!

I took a long walk after making that post and pretty much what you've all said occurred to me. There's no good reason for me to continue working overtime and getting stressed out over issues like the servers and random consultants getting domain admin access. Yes, it's all a poor situation, but as of next Friday at ~3PM, it's no longer my poor situation.

And however much I dislike leaving that mess, I didn't create it, and I did go well above and beyond the scope of my role to try and fix as much of it as I could. That I wasn't able to fix it entirely is a failing of the business, not me as a professional (or a person).

Working regular weeks, I can get the new backup server online (not tested, but at least running), swap in the new core switches, and move all but the boardroom mailboxes to the new Exchange server. There's still plenty of stuff waiting to die, but I can at least accomplish that much, and make sure that the new manager knows all of the ticking time bombs that he inherited. The rest? I guess that'll be up to him.

And as for all this documentation for the consultants bullshit, I'm not going to worry about it. I'll do the stuff that I was going to provide anyway, but if they really want to know the serial number of each physical host (or software payload of a standard laptop, or scans of each server with their tool, etc.) they can bloody well do that themselves, after I'm gone.

I concur. Honestly, I think the most valuable work product you can produce right now isn't executing any of those tasks, but simply cataloging them. As a first pass, make a simple list of all your open projects / tasks. Second pass, rank them in terms of priority, complexity and remaining effort to complete. Third pass, add in a detailed description of the issue. Fourth pass, add in the historical context of current state, references to work in progress, and recommended next steps.

Once your transition list is written up and handed over to the director (with a clear understanding that you're not committing to completing them all!), THEN you can begin actually executing, starting from the top and moving down the list as time permits. That's how I'd do it anyway, YMMV.

I concur. Honestly, I think the most valuable work product you can produce right now isn't executing any of those tasks, but simply cataloging them. As a first pass, make a simple list of all your open projects / tasks. Second pass, rank them in terms of priority, complexity and remaining effort to complete. Third pass, add in a detailed description of the issue. Fourth pass, add in the historical context of current state, references to work in progress, and recommended next steps.

Once your transition list is written up and handed over to the director (with a clear understanding that you're not committing to completing them all!), THEN you can begin actually executing, starting from the top and moving down the list as time permits. That's how I'd do it anyway, YMMV.

+1. Prioritize documenting knowledge that only you have. The actual tasks can probably be done by other people (Highly Paid Consultants) so long as you document the knowledge only you have that they need.

Think about whether it would be less work for you to document the tasks required, and the contextual knowledge you have, or to do the tasks yourself. If it's less work to document your knowledge (which it should be), that is the higher value work.

Like others have said, you don't own these problems anymore. No matter how much you do in your last 1.5 weeks, the org is gonna feel a lot of pain no matter what.

Look at it from the perspective of the consultants coming in, is it more value for you to do the most important 2 out of 50 critical tasks, or to give a roadmap of the 50 tasks that need doing. Hint: it's the latter.

1) A totally broken backup system ( )2) An old Exchange server that might die at any moment and take the remaining un-migrated users and boardrooms with it (see #1)3) An SQL server that hosts multiple critical databases and dismounts its drive on a weekly basis, knocking them all offline and risking data corruption (again, see #1)

These are all problems that will outlive your 64 hour tenure at this company. Especially #2. Why worry about them when your worry will have no effect?

From personal experience, working on these items is also very dangerous. On my last day at a company I left on very friendly terms (I was moving for my wife's job), I decided to help with an issue in the email system. I totally fucked it up (partly because that's the software bug I was trying to fix, partly because I wasn't in IReallyCare(TM) mode) and those poor SOBs had to stay late on my last Friday, and probably had nuggets to deal with the next week. That wasn't actually very helpful of me, was it?

In short, only fix things that have a very finite time required to do so, and that fall well within your 64 hours of work. In fact, if you can't fix it by this Friday at 5, don't even try. Spend the time documenting work for High Paid Consultants.

Reminder: You may be a High Paid Consultant, soon. Leave some reason for them to hire you, and no reasons for you to hate your past self.

And as for all this documentation for the consultants bullshit, I'm not going to worry about it. I'll do the stuff that I was going to provide anyway, but if they really want to know the serial number of each physical host (or software payload of a standard laptop, or scans of each server with their tool, etc.) they can bloody well do that themselves, after I'm gone.

I'd caution you against this. Remember, you are being paid to do a job. Your employer has asked you for some things before you leave. No matter how much you disagree or think that there are higher priorities, you should do what they asked. I'd give some push back and remind them of the other issues, but if they want you to ignore them, then do it. Put your 40 in doing whatever they've asked and let the rest go. They've made their bed, they will have to now lie in it, not you. Take comfort in knowing that you've done what you could to warn them and they weren't interested in listening to you. They, not you, are the ones paid to make business decisions. The only thing you should be responsible for is giving them a complete, accurate description of things in your realm so that they can make an informed decision. I think you've more than done that at this point.

And as for all this documentation for the consultants bullshit, I'm not going to worry about it. I'll do the stuff that I was going to provide anyway, but if they really want to know the serial number of each physical host (or software payload of a standard laptop, or scans of each server with their tool, etc.) they can bloody well do that themselves, after I'm gone.

I'd caution you against this. Remember, you are being paid to do a job. Your employer has asked you for some things before you leave. No matter how much you disagree or think that there are higher priorities, you should do what they asked. I'd give some push back and remind them of the other issues, but if they want you to ignore them, then do it. Put your 40 in doing whatever they've asked and let the rest go. They've made their bed, they will have to now lie in it, not you. Take comfort in knowing that you've done what you could to warn them and they weren't interested in listening to you. They, not you, are the ones paid to make business decisions. The only thing you should be responsible for is giving them a complete, accurate description of things in your realm so that they can make an informed decision. I think you've more than done that at this point.

There's really no room in my 40 for the more trivial documentation; not if I'm going to get the more important documentation (for the new manager) done, or any of the other duties that the director is aware are a high priority.

Should he decide that the contractor documentation is now the highest priority, I will of course do that. In the absence of any directive of that nature, I plan to continue working as as I've already advised him I would.

My new job is itself contracting (albeit long-term), with a fixed schedule, so no worries there; if I continue to do work for the current company, it'll be outside of my schedule at the new company, and on a project, rather than support basis.

I'm not in IT but if I left my current job for a contracting position, I would need a lot more than 1.6x salary. Maybe others can comment more appropriately but how to contract vs. hourly rates compare for an equitable compensation, after factoring things like health care, taxes, etc.

A lot of IT contractor positions are regular W2 employment, complete with benefits, although often different from the regular full timers benefits. The only thing that separates one of these contractors from a normal employee is the name on the check.

To add to this, in Canada taxation is entirely different; contractors often pay less in taxes (depending on the structure of their contracting arrangement), gain the ability to write off expenses, etc. I'll take a hit on healthcare and paid vacation, but gain substantially on paid overtime, and gain slightly on taxes. I've done all of the math with my accountant, and the 1.6x is actually 1.7x in post-tax dollars. I'm comfortable having to pay for my own healthcare for a 70% raise.

As far as healthcare plans go, look at Sunlife.. One of my buddy's sells for them and could sort you out with a good package...

So the company has declined my offer of a couple of weeks of additional support at what amounts to twice my current rate (well, half the hours for the same pay). My director expects that they'll change their tune once I actually leave and they discover both how big the knowledge gap really is, and that the new consultants aren't going to be magicians.

If that's the case, should I even bother to agree to help (which I may very well not do), they'll be looking at a rate more like what folks in this thread have suggested; 2-3x my new rate.

The two remaining guys have started looking for other work as well. If their experience at all mirrors mine, they could be gone inside of six weeks. Meanwhile, the EVP gave them the same "just hang in there for 3-6 months and things will get better if that's what the new manager wants" speech. Apparently I'm not the only one that rang hollow with.

It seems pretty tacky to me to be discussing consulting rates before you're even out the door. Besides which, they won't really understand how much of a bind they're in until you're not there. One might accuse you of doing a shoddy job in the next 2 weeks because of greed.

It seems pretty tacky to me to be discussing consulting rates before you're even out the door. Besides which, they won't really understand how much of a bind they're in until you're not there. One might accuse you of doing a shoddy job in the next 2 weeks because of greed.

They specifically requested additional help after I left, which is the only reason why I discussed consulting rates at this juncture.

It seems pretty tacky to me to be discussing consulting rates before you're even out the door. Besides which, they won't really understand how much of a bind they're in until you're not there. One might accuse you of doing a shoddy job in the next 2 weeks because of greed.

Respectfully, I disagree. Having had to both tap into former employees who left on good terms, and as a former employee of a different company myself, more often than not the managers approached both my former coworkers and myself regarding contacting us after we were gone. All he's doing is saying "i'm a resource *if* you have questions, but this is what I'll be charging you".

What they've said, in response, is basically "we'll try not to contact you".

Seems like the EVP is an amateur at dealing with actual employees. Or the recession gave him funny ideas about what employees will put up with if they have options.

Both EVP and HR director. When I left my old job, I had finally realized either the naivete, or just sheer inexperience, that my managers had with dealing with employees who knew their market value. In addition to their complete *lack* of experience doing anything in IT.

It's the old guard - the people who thought that managing any department is the same as any other department, and that all they need to do is manage. If you manage without understanding the tasks you're assigning to your employees, you're really not managing well. you're just telling them what to do.

And as for all this documentation for the consultants bullshit, I'm not going to worry about it. I'll do the stuff that I was going to provide anyway, but if they really want to know the serial number of each physical host (or software payload of a standard laptop, or scans of each server with their tool, etc.) they can bloody well do that themselves, after I'm gone.

I'd go to whoever is your formal superior, briefly outline that the remaining ~25h of work call for prioritizing and ask whether you should go note serial numbers, go as you think etc. I'd just tell them that I don't want to be responsible to choose which of the powder keg blows first, in a more diplomatic manner.And congrats to realizing that all this is not even remotely your problem now

Concerning contracting, I would ask for something in the high quarter of what consultants ask for that area. That might well be 4-5 times your new rate or not. They turned down your foolishly generous offer. When they ask again, you might have made new plans in the mean time and as the new job will be taxing, too, while paying more, you might value your leisure time more than before - on which you would have to cut down unwillingly. And as said, make sure they pay for all the time you spend.

@ GByteKnightHans Zimmer? I immediately thought of Spider Pig, but that seems unfitting

Concerning contracting, I would ask for something in the high quarter of what consultants ask for that area. That might well be 4-5 times your new rate or not. They turned down your foolishly generous offer. When they ask again, you might have made new plans in the mean time and as the new job will be taxing, too, while paying more, you might value your leisure time more than before - on which you would have to cut down unwillingly. And as said, make sure they pay for all the time you spend.

I found out from the consultant that I gave a tour of the facility to today that his outfit is charging ~8x my current hourly rate. So yeah, by contrast my offer of 2x was incredibly generous, and the 4x I was considering asking if they come back to me later also quite generous. Especially given that, when I was explaining the contents of our server racks to the consultant, he said, "Oh, cool, you have a VMWare. I've heard of those."

I found out from the consultant that I gave a tour of the facility to today that his outfit is charging ~8x my current hourly rate. So yeah, by contrast my offer of 2x was incredibly generous, and the 4x I was considering asking if they come back to me later also quite generous. Especially given that, when I was explaining the contents of our server racks to the consultant, he said, "Oh, cool, you have a VMWare. I've heard of those."

If they're going to be that bad, I'd be inclined to start putting limits on what work you will do as a consultant. Make sure you're only communicating with their high priced consultants, and not doing any hands on work.

I found out from the consultant that I gave a tour of the facility to today that his outfit is charging ~8x my current hourly rate. So yeah, by contrast my offer of 2x was incredibly generous, and the 4x I was considering asking if they come back to me later also quite generous.

You will make 1.6x on you new job, right?So 1.6x5 is 8x your old rate.If those consultants aren't among the whipped cream and really good ones tend to charge more in cases where they offer specific experience for the knowledge domain needed, you could up your rate to that. You do offer a lot of very specific knowledge. If you could live with them refusing and want to take a gamble, asking for 10-12x your old rate could be ok and would probably be justified. Asking for more than those consultants is likely to lead to refusal, though, as most management types simply don't get why they should pay someone that much who made a pittance some weeks ago when people with suits ask for less.

And I hope for you that this consultant was just honest when making the VMWare remark I'm known for being overly humble/an ass off a snakelike show-off through such remarks and run around as a consultant, too. About things I rarely find someone IRL who can follow me on the topic, I tend to say that I have a vague idea how they work or read a bit about it, which is definitely true in the grand scheme of things, but not the usually chosen classifier.

Okay, so I won't do any consulting work for at least the first week or two after starting my new job. Or, if their need is urgent, I'll do so on weekends, limit my hours, and price my services according to the urgency.

Don't forget - minimum of 30 minute intervals. Except for a very few exceptions, even a simple phone call asking you what foo to bar needs to count as .5 hours. Two reasons - 1, your opportunity cost is much higher than the 30 seconds you're on the phone for and 2) it discourages constant phone calls for a tiny bit of info and instead focuses it into a single phone call for multiple pieces of info at once. Those few exceptions are things like, where did you put the keys to the server rack that you said you'd leave in the desk drawer but clearly aren't there? You know, things they might have a "right" to ask for even if you weren't consulting with them.

Concerning contracting, I would ask for something in the high quarter of what consultants ask for that area. That might well be 4-5 times your new rate or not. They turned down your foolishly generous offer. When they ask again, you might have made new plans in the mean time and as the new job will be taxing, too, while paying more, you might value your leisure time more than before - on which you would have to cut down unwillingly. And as said, make sure they pay for all the time you spend.

I found out from the consultant that I gave a tour of the facility to today that his outfit is charging ~8x my current hourly rate. So yeah, by contrast my offer of 2x was incredibly generous, and the 4x I was considering asking if they come back to me later also quite generous. Especially given that, when I was explaining the contents of our server racks to the consultant, he said, "Oh, cool, you have a VMWare. I've heard of those."

The VMWare comment may have been a joke (I hope...)I'm sure it's really annoying to hear about the 8x, but I'm not completely surprised. The EVP & HR Director's backgrounds are completely unsuited for any real view of what they're doing in that regard.

Looking forward to hearing what happens as the company slowly realizes that: (1) Cleaning up or overhauling long-neglected IT infrastructure is not a small or short-term project, so it won't be cheap or take just 1-2 weeks at 8x your salary;

(2) From the 8X, it looks like they hired IT consultants with the skillset & experience of setting up / building infrastructure, not just maintenance (otherwise, I'd expect the rate to be more 4x-5x).They'll soon realize that these type of consultants are not usually set up to do ongoing IT maintenance.

(3) Given

Black_Obsidian wrote:

Incidentally, the new guy coming in is just a manager, not a director. Apparently he was hired for his hands-on skills, and was specifically told not to expect the position to grow into a directorship.

and the rush nature of the hiring process, it's unlikely the new manager is top-notch. Not many good, motivated people would take a manager position in a small company with a lot of stuff broken, but knowing there was no advancement path. They made a really stupid, not just inexperienced, move there, even using the most generic Rules of HR... I wonder whether the HR Director was responsible for that.I'm curious what excuse they gave him to avoid him speak to you and the rest of the current IT staff before he made the decision to join unless that's rare in Canada? Here it's pretty common, and any good candidate would insist -- esp. when it's a non-tech company and it's clear the interviewing execs aren't familiar with the domain).

Anyway, if he is good, he's likely to quit once he finds out the full situation.If he's not, he certainly won't be able to stop the remaining 2 guys quitting soon if they have reasonable prospects.

IMO, They've pretty much guaranteed themselves a continuing IT crisis for months... It remains to be seen just how crucial IT is to the basic functioning of the company.

B_O, as we hear more, I'm starting to think you may have been actually fortunate they didn't adopt your plan 100% and you left. Even if they have would have raised your salary to 1.6x as requested, given what I'm hearing, it's not at all certain they would have followed through the rest of the plan in time,or made reasonable hiring decisions. You might have remained in a situation where you would have been set up to fail professionally.

B_O, as we hear more, I'm starting to think you may have been actually fortunate they didn't adopt your plan 100% and you left. Even if they have would have raised your salary to 1.6x as requested, given what I'm hearing, it's not at all certain they would have followed through the rest of the plan in time,or made reasonable hiring decisions. You might have remained in a situation where you would have been set up to fail professionally.

The VMWare comment may have been a joke (I hope...)I'm sure it's really annoying to hear about the 8x, but I'm not completely surprised. The EVP & HR Director's backgrounds are completely unsuited for any real view of what they're doing in that regard.

I wish it was. No, the guy is pretty sharp on the client side, but on the server side of things, it's obvious that he (and the whole consulting outfit, best as I can tell) is used to supporting shops with <50 people. He seemed to digest the notion of a separate iSCSI network okay, but looked like a fish out of water when I briefly covered our storage arrays and LUN provisioning. I'm sure they'll be able to handle our legacy environment just fine, since it's nothing but a pile of single-use 2003R2 servers that are probably more their speed. And hopefully I've architected the new virtual setup so that it can run for a few months unattended, because it seems like it's going to have to, and 90% of our core critical services live there.

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Looking forward to hearing what happens as the company slowly realizes that: (1) Cleaning up or overhauling long-neglected IT infrastructure is not a small or short-term project, so it won't be cheap or take just 1-2 weeks at 8x your salary;

(2) From the 8X, it looks like they hired IT consultants with the skillset & experience of setting up / building infrastructure, not just maintenance (otherwise, I'd expect the rate to be more 4x-5x).They'll soon realize that these type of consultants are not usually set up to do ongoing IT maintenance.

(3) Given

Black_Obsidian wrote:

Incidentally, the new guy coming in is just a manager, not a director. Apparently he was hired for his hands-on skills, and was specifically told not to expect the position to grow into a directorship.

and the rush nature of the hiring process, it's unlikely the new manager is top-notch. Not many good, motivated people would take a manager position in a small company with a lot of stuff broken, but knowing there was no advancement path.

1) Is certainly true, and if they somehow don't know yet, they'll know when I hand over documentation for the new manager (80% of which will have been included in the appendices of my proposal).

2) As others have suggested, it's just 8x my depressed rate, or 5x the actual market rate. For which they've gotten decent desktop support and some understanding of infrastructure, as it was 5 years ago. It's better than nothing, but still leaves a gap consisting of most of my role. Hopefully for them the manager can fill that.

3) They almost certainly have not told the new manager the truth about the situation. They certainly went out of their way to avoid having any of us meet the guy, and indeed won't even give me his name so I can request a PO to order him a laptop. I'd love to be here on his first day, when he realizes just what he's stepped into.

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Anyway, if he is good, he's likely to quit once he finds out the full situation.If he's not, he certainly won't be able to stop the remaining 2 guys quitting soon if they have reasonable prospects.

IMO, They've pretty much guaranteed themselves a continuing IT crisis for months... It remains to be seen just how crucial IT is to the basic functioning of the company.

I (and the remaining guys in IT) don't expect the new manager to last more than a couple of months. Especially if one of them continues the pattern and quits for a better job too. Who in their right mind would want to be the manager of a department that's lost 60% of its staff so far this year, have to deal with fair-to-middling consultants, and have a bunch of infrastructure that's badly in need of replacement?

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B_O, as we hear more, I'm starting to think you may have been actually fortunate they didn't adopt your plan 100% and you left. Even if they have would have raised your salary to 1.6x as requested, given what I'm hearing, it's not at all certain they would have followed through the rest of the plan in time,or made reasonable hiring decisions. You might have remained in a situation where you would have been set up to fail professionally.

Agreed. The more I learn about the true situation and the ongoing decisions of the EVP (whether his hand is being force from above or not, he's still the one implementing), the happier I am that I've chosen to leave when I did. What started out as an uncertain and reluctant decision has, in the span of three days, become downright prescient.

I continue to feel bad for the people left behind, both within IT and without. The company is so reliant on IT services that work; Sharepoint for collaboration, email and VOIP for communication, CAD applications/servers for engineers to actually do design work on the test plant (not to mention finish design on the commercial plant that the company is contractually obligated to begin building later this summer), the ERP system... any scenario in which a server fails and the backup hasn't worked is going to result in the loss of days or weeks of data in any of those systems. The work to recreate it and the blame for losing it will not, of course, fall on the executives who knowingly let the situation deteriorate so significantly.

nah, the blame's going to fall upon you. Fortunately it won't matter to you.

Regarding the consultant's rates. You need to determine for yourself at what price you would find it worthwhile. if you really want extra money, you'll have to hit a number the company would accept. The consultants' rates may help you figure out the latter, but they have nothing to do with the former.

Who in their right mind would want to be the manager of a department that's lost 60% of its staff so far this year, have to deal with fair-to-middling consultants, and have a bunch of infrastructure that's badly in need of replacement?

I would. Of course, I interview the company as hard (if not harder) than they interview me and assuming they were honest, this would be a blast. The opportunity to rip and replace basically a department and make it my own? Including the infrastructure? Cool!

Of course, I would also be getting paid really well and would require other benefits and authority.

But to be known as the guy that you bring in when your IT department shits the bed, where you hand over the keys and budget... Yeah, that's the reputation that I want to have in this town. I have it with some old companies, and I admit that my style works great for fixing and building out (but not that great for maintenance), but what you've described kinda sounds fun..

B_O, at this point it's "head down, stop worrying about the new shit coming in, just do the documentation and move on". Just my $0.02. I don't mean "stop caring" and I certainly don't mean "don't be professional", but your time with them is up and their projects and issues are their own. If the incoming consultants are morons, oh well that's just par for the course. It's been proven to you without a shadow of a doubt that you are of little to no value to the organization in their eyes (not in mine nor your own) by the exec team, and again that doesn't mean "fuck 'em" nor "lash out" but it does mean just do what you gotta' do and get out of there.

I would. Of course, I interview the company as hard (if not harder) than they interview me and assuming they were honest, this would be a blast. The opportunity to rip and replace basically a department and make it my own? Including the infrastructure? Cool!

Of course, I would also be getting paid really well and would require other benefits and authority.

Just saying though, that if they promised me the authority to go with the responsibility, it could be an interesting job.

Give the excellent details and description that B_O has provided, we are pretty sure we have several executives who are fairly inflexible and not competent dealing with technology management. We can probably guess what's been promised the new manager.

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That being said, should they reneg on the authority I would walk pretty fast.